


Sleep Somehow

by jendavis



Category: Leverage
Genre: Comment Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-03
Updated: 2011-07-03
Packaged: 2017-10-20 23:52:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/218468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jendavis/pseuds/jendavis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for comment_fic prompt on lj: "There's a reason he sometimes spends almost a month worth of nights awake with nothing but MMO's and Orange Soda."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sleep Somehow

It's not unusual. Alec's orange soda addiction, he'd noted and filed years ago.

And hell, he'd ditched out on a _job_ , once, because of the computer games - and no, Eliot's never going to admit how thankful he was, how much they'd lucked out by Hardison's being late. If he'd actually been _on_ the falling plane, the chances he would've been sane enough to _stop_ it would've been nonexistent.

But this is getting a little out of hand.

"You were up all night again, weren't you?"

"Yeah," Alec nods, rolling his shoulders, still watching the screen. There were monsters fighting monsters, weird flashes and something that might've been mist. Even now, Eliot couldn't parse it. "It ain't like we've got a job goin' on."

 _Yeah, but._

Eliot lets it drop, goes into the kitchen like the only reason he came over here was to do the freakin' dishes. And watch Alec play his stupid computer games.

Again.

"I'll be done in a minute," Alec calls out from his computer. "Just need to…"

Eliot doesn't bother listening. It might be a minute, it might be an hour. They've done this before.

He tunes in again a few babbling moments later. "Any idea what you want to do tonight?"

Until he'd gotten here, he'd been thinking about going out to a movie, or just putting a DVD in and missing most of one, but right now, he's suddenly irritated by the very idea of it.

"No," he admits, filling the sink, well aware that he's now complicit in Alec's unending gaming.

On the counter, there are copies of Parker's pile of paperwork from the doctors. He's probably got everything there but a release form, but then again, she hasn't _been_ released yet.

It's been two and a half weeks already.

They're saying she'll be out Tuesday. She was supposed to come home yesterday.

There's a loud crashing sound coming from the computer in the next room, and Eliot wants to complain, wants to bitch, wants to point out that Alec hasn't been to the hospital all week, but the most recent paperwork on the counter is dated from yesterday, and it's not a scanned copy. Drying his hands off, he still manages to drip enough water over the page that the ink runs.

The poison's fully out of her system, and she's hydrated, but they're still concerned that it took so long for the fever to go down. More tests, more observation. More waiting, only it's worse now, because she's getting better. She's lucid, and strong enough now to try and make a break for it.

"You been by there?"

"Yeah. Stopped by on the way over," Eliot says, hiding his surprise. The computer's still making noise, but Alec's appeared right behind him. He hadn't even noticed. "She was sleeping, though. Didn't want to wake her up."

"Probably should've." Alec's hands are on his hips, just resting there, and he's looking at the paperwork over his shoulder. He needs a shower. "She'll probably wake up at two in the morning and make another escape attempt."

"Yeah." Eliot leans back into him for a moment before reaching for the coffee pot. "So. Any idea what you want to do tonight? I got nothing." This would be so much easier if it was seven months ago, when every moment not spent fucking was a massive waste of time. And right now, Eliot's just not in the mood.

"We could go check out the science museum. They've got that X-Ray exhibit set up."

Eliot smirks. It beats watching him play computer games, anyhow.

\---

Eliot's parts have finally arrived for the bike rebuild, so most of Saturday is spent in the garage, but Sunday, well. It's Friday all over again, only this time, Eliot's ordered pizza.

Alec pads into the kitchen to help wait, and he's still wearing yesterday's clothes. "Have you slept at all?"

"Got some, yeah."

Eliot doesn't ask for specifics, in case Alec's talking about crashing Friday night for two hours before getting up to fuck with that game again. The computer's off, for now, but it's still warm to the touch when Eliot passes by.

It's been over two weeks of this, now, and he's had enough.

"You were on the computer all night again, weren't you?"

Alec nods. "Yeah. Nothing else to do, time to kill. You know how it is."

"Yeah. But still. Even for you." Because sometimes, he'd come over on their off days and find him paint splattered and grinning. Last month, he'd been working on Rothko forgeries, and the fake Pollocks from the previous month had been even more entertainingly messy. Or he'd be casually breaking into the Tokyo exchange, or freaking sewing _costumes_ of all things. And he always seemed so much more awake. _Alive_.

Alec's too washed out and exhausted to even argue. It's as good an invitation as Eliot's likely to get. "So what's goin' on?"

Another shrug. "Just. In a rut. You know how it is."

"Ain't gonna get better, just doin' the same thing over and over."

"Yeah." Alec sighs. "Escapism has its appeal, sometimes."

And Eliot _gets_ it, he does, but it's sucking the life out of him. "Parker? She's gonna be fine."

"Yeah, but she wasn't, was she? I mean, for a while there, it was-" Alec breaks off, starts over. "Just don't like thinking about her trapped in that hospital room."

That's only about half of it, but there's a knock on the door, the pizza they ordered is here, and the game's about to start.

Alec falls asleep on Eliot's shoulder before the en f the first quarter, and stays that way for the rest of the game.   Eliot doesn't move an inch.

\---

He wakes when Alec stirs. The living room's dark, now, the television the only light. Eliot glares at the post-game idiocy on the screen, before blinking at Hardison, trying to get him in focus.

"Where're you going?"

"Nowhere," Alec shrugs, but he freezes, sheepishly, like he knows he's just been caught.

Eliot drags himself to his feet, standing in Alec's path. He's tired, cranky, and honestly, it's helping. "C'mon," Eliot grumbles, dragging him up. "Let's go."

\---

Eliot wakes a bit more when they begin moving, it's enough to knock some sense into him regarding Hardison's desperate need of a shower, so he shoves him towards the bathroom.

"Clean up, man. You needed a shower two _days_ ago."

Alec nods, again. Doesn't argue, doesn't snark back at him, doesn't even roll his eyes, just squeezes his shoulder before leaning to turn the shower on. He's so damned malleable that Eliot wants to break him, shake him back into himself or something.

It's a terrifying thought. He's been having a lot of those, lately.

\---

When he's out, he smells right again, but without his shirt on, it's too obvious that he's tense as all hell. Eliot tosses the book he hasn't been reading onto the nightstand and waves him over.

"Lie down," he says, and smirks at Alec until he complies. "Roll over."

" _Sit_ ," Alec grumbles. " _Stay_."

It's not all that funny, but Eliot laughs anyway as some heretofore unnoticed weight eases up off his shoulders. It's the first joke Alec's cracked in days.

He straddles Alec's hips and starts on his shoulders, they're still damp from the shower. Down his back and up again, down his arms. Back to the shoulders again. The knots of tension, Eliot recognizes from other nights like this, after jobs when Alec had been crouched over his keyboards for two days straight.

He works him until he's boneless and dozing, rolling to his side just enough to slide his hand up Eliot's side, grinning because he knows he's too close to sleep to do anything, but he's going to try anyway. His eyes haven't opened yet, but he manages to catch Eliot's hand, kiss his wrist.

"Ain't startin' nothing, here," Eliot mutters. "Get some sleep."

Alec does.

For a little while.

This time, when he wakes, though, Eliot's already up, four more chapters through his book. He rolls over and doesn't give him the chance to beeline towards his computer.

"So who died?" He knows he's taking him off guard, isn't at all surprised by Alec's confused scowl.

"What?"

"In the hospital," Eliot says. "Ain't too hard to figure out, man."

"Nobody." Alec rolls onto his back, eyes on the ceiling. "Just don't like the _waiting_ for days on end, you know? ...I'm not so great, waiting for people to get out of the hospital. My Nana used to go in for weeks at a time before she went into remission, and every time, all I could think about was what would happen if she didn't come back."

"What happened?"

"She came back."

"Parker's coming back too, you know."

"Yeah." Alec's fully awake now, and already twitching like he's about to get up. Logic, evidently, has little sway here.

"Warcraft will still be there in the morning," Eliot grumbles, realizing that demands will probably work better, and he's not above taking hostages if need be. He tugs on Alec's arm until he settles again. "I'm here now."

"Which is awesome, but I don't want to keep you up."

"That makes exactly one of us," Eliot grins, and pulls him closer.

\---

It's almost a year later when it happens again. This time, it's Nana's paperwork on the kitchen counter.

The third time, Eliot's got it down to a science. Breaks him out of the spell after only two nights.

The fourth time, Eliot's not even sure it's happening. They won't let him out of the hospital to go see, and he's not sure he should bring the others into it by asking them to check on him, yet.

Because yeah, the panic had subsided, mostly, by this afternoon. Enough that nobody'd even tried to stop Alec's tired, rambling diatribe on stupid risks and gravity, about how the bad guys always lurk on rooftops- as if even _that_ was his fault- and about how Eliot couldn't dodge bullets.

It's getting late, he's close to drifting off, but across town, Hardison's probably staring at his computer screen for the second night in a row, distracting his brain until he's a complete wreck. And there's no one there to stop him.

The thought's almost as depressing as surgery for a collapsed lung, the scratch of the ventilator tube down his throat, and the neutral pattern of the grid-work ceiling above his bed.

There's a sound in the hallway, and bright light jolting into his room as the door opens. He's almost too slow to catch it, but a moment later, Alec's there, laptop under his arm.

"It wasn't working," he says.  Needed to get my head out of the game."

The ventilator tube prevents him from speaking, and his throat hurts too much to try, anyway, but he gestures vaguely in the direction of the laptop Alec's got under his arm. It's as strong an accusation as he can manage, right now.

"Hang on. Might want to close your eyes," Alec mutters, turning on the bedside light. When Eliot's blinked the darkness away enough to see, he realizes that Alec's wearing plaid flannel pants and his ugliest sweatshirt, and that what he'd thought was a laptop was actually a thick graphic novel.

"Research, I promise" he tries to joke, reading the unimpressed look on Eliot's face. "The sooner we get you set up with Wolverine's healing factor, the better."

Eliot flicks the fingers on his right hand out and back again a few times, forces himself not to grimace as his arm's movement sends jagged bolts down into his chest. He finds the morphine control and hits it, twice.

"Yeah, okay," Alec nods, leaning over to kiss his forehead before pulling the chair closer to his bed. "I'll look into adamantium upgrades, too."

The painkillers are kicking in, now, and he's riding them straight into sleep, but the light's still on and he can see Alec with his feet on the bed, comic book forgotten in his lap, just watching him back. He looks tired, too.

\---

Eliot wakes up when Alec does, and for once, it's because the nurse has come in to inform him that they'll be taking out the ventilator tube in a few minutes.

The comic book's on the floor, and when Eliot gestures at it with a questioning glance, Alec shrugs. "Sorry, didn't even start. Too busy watching you breathe, must've dozed off." He glances at the clock and shakes his head, grimacing as he tries to work the kinks out of his neck. "Figures the best sleep I've had in days would be in the world's most uncomfortable chair."

\---

He comes back that night, anyway, and it's mostly the same, only this time, he can kiss Eliot on the mouth, doesn't have to be so damned careful with him, and Eliot kisses him back, hard as he can manage.

Alec's fingers trail along the side of his mouth as he pulls away, sticking slightly to a patch of medical tape residue that Eliot had missed, earlier, and he sits back in his chair again. He doesn't bother picking up the comic book.

Eliot falls asleep first. Just barely. 


End file.
